Aroldis Chapman Teaches Pitching Velocity

Pitching Velocity Analysis Lefty

This is Brent Pourciau at topvelocity.net and I’m gonna do another pitching analysis here of Steven and pair him up with Chapman. Let’s take him and Chapman into their leg lift, we can see here that Chapman has more of an aggressive lift leg, he’s already starting to build that momentum very early, we can see his head, front hip all inside the drive leg. We can see that good strong movement, as the lift leg starts to come up he moves forward, brings the knee back to the drive leg and exposes the front hip. He can start leading with that front hip, everything’s closed off, so it will give him the potential to build more power through his stride.

Steven’s pretty much in that traditional balanced position, lifts the leg, not really any forward movement, the head is all balanced up over the  drive leg so that’s not a good position to start building power quickly. We only have the stride to do it so we gotta start as quickly as possible, we can see that Chapman is definitely in a better position for doing that.

Let’s take Chapman into his load, as that lift leg comes down we can see the front hip moving with it so we don’t see just the lift leg going, we see the whole body going and starting to build that momentum. This is a controlled fall, you’re just kind of falling forward, building your speed forward while you’re loading up your force vector. Now the reason it’s a fall is because we’re not in a position to drive because our force vector’s vertical. We can’t drive until our front vector is in line with our front hip so we kinda have to fall into the load position, we have to stay strong on the drive leg so that the force vector, that knee is leading the front hip, we don’t want to see the knee leading the knee to where the hips are moving and the force vector is not, we wanna see that the ankle to knee is driving the front hip so it’s constantly staying in line with that front hip. Then we get to the point where we’re in a linear position, still loaded and we have flexion on that drive leg, front leg is closed and were ready to launch.

As Steven moves forwards we see the lift leg going but not a lot of hip movement, when his lift leg comes down, look where he is, his force vector’s still vertical, he’s not building any type of speed or momentum and he’s definitely not getting into a load position efficiently or effectively. Now that his lift leg is down, his then gonna have to drift to line the force vector up, now he’s in a launch position, but here he’s lost flexion in his drive leg so he’s not in a good position to launch. It’s gonna be hard to get any power though triple extension, because your weight s so balanced, it’s not sitting on this drive leg and you’re gonna just probably be only to get your ankle kick through and it looks like that’s the case. You did push your ankle through into your front foot but definitely not powerful. This is where your front foot landed and settled and right when you hit you’re pretty much still on the rubber.  There really wasn’t an explosive drive, definitely didn’t have triple extension because we don’t have the hip flexors through, you didn’t take advantage of the load or focus on the load into your launch. Your launch phase really suffered, triple extension never occurred at front foot strike is now as you settle you have that lead knee flexion because the hips are rotating and we can see the back foot rotating with them. You’re internally rotating the leg right here, so you can get the hips open into the next frame, but it doesn’t create torque. That forward explosive movement has to create hip rotation so the explosive drive triple extension of the drive leg into front foot strike and then the front leg stabilisation and then extension back into the other hip creates that explosive hip rotation. Landing on your front leg without triple extension and then just internally rotating your drive leg to open your hips is not gonna transfer that power into hip to shoulder separation to basically develop core torque.

This is the point where your hips completely open and your shoulders pretty much right there with it. You have some separation but we don’t see any type of coiling. Now watch Chapman, as he launches from that perfect load position he achieves triple extension before front foot strike he lands a good foot off the rubber, the hips open here, the shoulders are still back, and as the shoulders completely come through he still has them separate from the hips. The hips are right to me and the shoulder’s kind of off towards the second base position. We can see there was power thought the stride, he’s got a full stride here and we can see that the jersey’s kinda ringing out because of that torque between the hips and shoulders. This is more of a coiling going on here as opposed to what Steven’s doing here. That’s going to then put Chapman in a high velocity category and Steven’s not. He doesn’t have a great stride, he’s still on the rubber and we don’t see the coiling which is the conversion of that power form shoulder to hip separation so as that shoulder goes, the arm goes with it. Compare the external rotation, Chapman goes 180, Steven is 90, very poor, and then releases the ball very early completely upright. Chapman releases the ball, good forward trunk tilt over the front foot leg, front leg extension and a high velocity category. Steven, because you failed on going early and positioning yourself into a load position where you’re ready to launch and explode and really start to build your power in your front foot you were unable to create that explosive hip rotation and that optimal hip to shoulder separation which is the only way you’re gonna reach your velocity goals.

You look like an athletic guy, I think you do need the 3X pitching velocity program because it will develop you to be more explosive, you could do with it through your legs, it will help you with the stretch shortening cycle, you ‘re going to be able to more effectively build torque in your body because the strength and conditioning program, the 3X pitching velocity program, focuses on and isolates properties of the stretch shortening cycle and the throwing program will help you develop the motor co-ordination around these 3X mechanics. It’s not a quick fix, it’s a 16 week program to see results then after that you continue to cycle through it to tack on more of what you want. You’re at an age where you really need to jump on a program like this because it doesn’t look like you’re In a program that’s developing you to be an explosive athlete, while helping you develop the good motor co-ordination around throwing mechanics so I would suggest you check it out. If you have any questions then let me know please post it here on the forums and I hope that this video analysis helps.